Economy of Words and a Sea of Stuff – Culture and Tech

In this age of mobile computing and smart phones, the ability to be concise with the written word is a valuable skill. As we navigate through a sea of seemingly endless data, it is important to get to the point.

I read a few months ago that communicating in a concise manner is becoming a necessary skill in the job market. In fact, the article made the assertion that as some technologies become commonplace, new skills emerge. Example: restricting one’s email subject to a few characters is advantageous, because a short subject will fit in the subject line of the iPhone’s Mail app.

News crawlers on HD monitors everywhere dispense news a sentence at a time. Blog posts rely on bullet points to call attention to important facts. And the Christian world is not immune. Some pastors are even employing similar techniques in their sermons (for good or for bad). Rick Warren famously preaches in bursts of thought separated by music or media.

We all have heard stories about the state of attention spans brought about by the technologies available today. There is a wealth of information at our respective fingertips, which requires us to make choices about our consumption of data. Finding processes to navigate the sea of stuff is vital.

Question: Is this a positive trend? Negative? Here to stay? To be escaped?